Bryant groomed to be a baseball star

The USD slugger could be the No. 1 pick in Thursday's MLB draft.

Toreros #23 Kris Bryant in front of his batting cage at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada where he grew up playing little league and high school baseball before going off to play at University San Diego.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T SAN DIEGO

Toreros #23 Kris Bryant in front of his batting cage at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada where he grew up playing little league and high school baseball before going off to play at University San Diego.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T SAN DIEGO

“He was rough around the edges, loud,” says Bryant. “His language was, uh, colorful. He’d say, ‘Bryant, you need to get this down. You’ve spent enough time, just get it down for crying out loud.

“But when I’d do it right, he was very enthusiastic. He’d say, ‘That’s the way to go. You do it more like that you’ll be making a million dollars in the big leagues.’”

Williams hit 521 home runs despite missing three seasons in the peak of his career while serving in World War II. One of Williams’ tenets was that because the pitcher throws downhill, to squarely strike the ball, a batter’s swing must follow an upward plane.

Mike Bryant groomed his son’s swing after Williams’. This past regular season Bryant led the NCAA Division I with 30 home runs. Second on the list: Ryan Kinsella of Elon with 19.

With the wind blowing in at Las Vegas’ Bonanza High, the No. 3 hitter skies out to the warning track. Kris Bryant’s older brother, Nick, batting cleanup, sends another outfielder to the dirt track. Not enough juice. The zephyr again prevails.

In the third-base coaching box, head coach Derek Stafford is screaming at a decibel level reserved for Metallica concerts.

“Stop hitting the ball in the air! The ball’s not going any….”

About then, Kris Bryant, then a sophomore, puts bat to cowhide and the outfielders, the park, the breeze don’t stand a chance.

“It was one of those hush moments,” says Nick, “Under my breath I said to a couple guys near me, ‘What’d you say, coach?’ ”

The batting cage sprung up in the back yard when Kris was 5. Two years later, Mike, who owned an outdoor furniture store, grew tired of pulling up to the Little League field with only two innings to play and watching others coach his son.

He sold the business, landed a job as a chemical sales rep and dedicated himself to coaching his boys.

By 9, Kris was playing baseball nearly year-round.

“I just knew in my gut that this kid was going to be a special baseball player,” says Mike.

Father and son stepped into the batting cage almost every day. The routine: 10 minutes off the tee, 10 minutes of soft toss, 25 minutes of live pitching.

By 12, Kris not only wanted to play in the major leagues but thought it was a realistic goal.

“I hit something like .719 with 19 home runs (in Little League) and people don’t do that,” Kris says. “I kind of realized it was starting to come easy for me. I realized I could go far in the game, and I haven’t let up since.”

There were the batting cage lessons. Equally important, there were the baseball life lessons handed down by Mike.

When Kris was younger and playing with older teammates, father told son to seek out the best players, hang with them, emulate them, compete with them.

When Kris slumped, Mike told him to focus not on himself but on his teammates.